Baker Academic

Sunday, June 30, 2013

On June 21, King’s College, London hosted a
day conference featuring presentations by James D. G. Dunn. Readers of this blog will recognize Professor
Emeritus Dunn as one of the preeminent New Testament scholars of our day. He has made invaluable contributions to
Pauline and Jesus studies. He is often
also included in the “memory” trend because of his huge and hugely-important Jesus Remembered (though he never really
engages memory theory in that book). Our
own Dr. Le Donne has the honor of being Prof. Dunn’s final PhD student at
Durham University.

I appreciated the kind invitation of the
New Testament folks at King’s College to come along and it was well worth the
time. Prof. Dunn gave two papers: “The Earliest Interpreters of Jesus
Tradition: John and Thomas”; “A New Perspective on the New Perspective on
Paul.” In the first lecture, he argues
that the Gospels of John and Thomas represent different types of developments
upon Synoptic (oral) Jesus tradition; John represents a development from within
while Thomas represents a development from without. In other words, John expands upon what is
already present in Synoptic (oral) tradition while Thomas simply adds stuff on
top of it that he got elsewhere. He
noted interestingly what he called “the paradox of John and Thomas”; namely,
that John is in the canon, Thomas is not, but that Thomas is often much closer
with the Synoptics than John.

The second paper argued that the New
Perspective is not really all that new at all and is, essentially, precisely
how Paul understood matters.

I hope that when my retirement comes, I can
be half as productive and insightful and Prof. Dunn. He’s currently a visiting Professor at King’s
College, London, so I hope the NT PhD students there are taking advantage of
his presence. If not, my goodness, buy
the man a cup of coffee!

Friday, June 28, 2013

Several months ago, I argued that the standard "Quests" paradigm is misleading. You can read my thoughts here, here and here. Yesterday, as a follow up to the comments on this post (and the comments is where the action be), I suggested that the so-called "Third Quest" had a few interesting quirks, but wasn't all that innovative. It could be that the most innovative thing that happened in Jesus studies during this period was the love affair that we had with the word "Quest". Referring to this essay, I wrote:

'Jesus the Jew' has the been the key to rendering Jesus as a historical construction from Augustine onward. When we take a long view (one that includes Josephus, the Talmud, Spinoza, Ya'avetz, Joseph Klausner, David Flusser, etc.) the non-Jewish portraits from Renan to Kasemann do not represent an era before the "Third Quest". These non-Jewish portraits are failed attempts to hold back a 2000-year tide.

To this, Larry the likable Lawyer loquated:

...the Third Quest would be important as a repudiation of the anti-Jewishness of the Second Quest. We're well rid of the idea that the "authentic" Jesus can be found in his least Jewish sayings and doings.

I think Larry is absolutely correct on this point. In fact, I think that we've arrived at the heart of the issue. Perhaps we should be talking about modern Jesus research in terms of pre-Holocaust and post-Holocaust eras.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

For me, talking about a post-Third Quest (as I did in my last post) is problematic. It is sort of
like asking a friend who has been acting funny, “Have you stopped taking your
medication?!” This, of course, is a much
different conversation if you really think that said friend has stopped
medicating. But, in colloquial English,
this question can also mean, “Gee, you seem to be acting funny!”

In the latter case, both parties can know
all-too-well that said friend was never on any medication. Similarly, talking about a “Third Quest” is
indicative of a particular era of Jesus research and will continue to be
indicative of this period long after nobody believes in this whole tripartite
Quest business anymore. So are we in a
post-Third Quest era? Well, I never
really took any medication, but I get your meaning – we’ve all been acting a
bit funny for about forty years.

Quirks of TheArtist Formerly Known as the Third Quest:

From the mid-1970s to the early 2000s, historians were fond
of talking about “Quests”. So what most
marked out this period from others is that this “Quest” language got really
popular. This was due to N. T. Wright’s
massive influence on the discipline and (my guess) had something to do with
Monty Python. This is a point that I haven't seen anywhere and that bears repeating: the key distinctive of the Third Quest was that scholars beat the "Quest" horse to death and then kept beating it. This, of course, was okay because we were all riding imaginary horses in the first place (à la Monty Python).

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

My introduction to historical Jesus studies was in the mid-Nineties. For those of you who measure by “Quests”,
this was the height of the so-called “Third Quest”. Consider this selection of
titles written from 1989 to 1994: Meyer’s Critical Realism and the New
Testament, Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Dunn’s Jesus, Paul, and the Law, Crossan’s The
Historical Jesus, Meier’s A Marginal Jew: Vol. 1, Dahl’s Jesus the Christ, N.T.
Wright’s New Testament and the People of God, Evans’ Life of Jesus Research, Horsley’s
Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, Sanders’ The Historical Figure of Jesus. And
the list goes on.

In 1994, I took my
first academic courses in Biblical Studies.
I took a class on the “Old Testament” and I took a class called “Jesus
Seminar”. In the latter, I attended a
handful of lectures and voting sessions at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa
(the longtime meeting place of the Jesus Seminar fellows). I was too naïve at the
time to know how celebrated/infamous this group was. It wasn’t like Salmon Rushdie
was presenting or anything.

I'm not quite sure what a biblioblogger is or how one joins this coven of ubernerds, but it seems that this here blog is now considered among the top 20 biblioblogs.

I would like to thank my agent, Snuffy Hoggeltweinschaefer; my parents, Gary and Patty; my taxidermist, Little Burt; my co-blogger, Chris Keeth; and Jim West's cat, Mr. Darcy. Finally, I would like to thank Jesus and Al Gore for making the internet possible.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Feel free to vote above. You are also welcome to provide your rationale by way of comment to this post. Do please keep in mind that Christians hold that Jesus is the Son of God and most interpret his death on the cross to be sacrificial in some way. With this in mind, I would ask that you keep your comments civil and respectful.

"[T]he Christian proclamation that God became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth is but a development of the basic thrust of the Hebrew Bible, God's movement toward humankind... At least in this respect, the difference between Judaism and Christianity is one of degree rather than kind."

I was very impressed with my answer to this student so I thought I would share it with you, oh beloved blog reader. In all honesty, I gave him three short reasons and I'm giving you three longer reasons. This only goes to show that I continue to impress myself with myself.

I've never been a big fan of F. F. Bruce (not that I ever had reason to dislike him), but I began to appreciate him a bit more last year. At the height of the inhospitable campaign that resulted in my departure from Illinois, a handful of supportive colleagues - indeed friends - posted the below quote on their office doors. It is from F. F. Bruce's autobiography In Retrospect (pp.188-189) :

When a man’s standing in the constituency which he serves, not to speak of his livelihood, depends on his reputation for fidelity to the truth of Scripture, it is a very serious matter for anyone else to broadcast doubts about his fidelity or orthodoxy. If he himself statedly renounces something which is of the essence of the historic Christian faith, he will be prepared for the consequences, but he should not be held responsible for the inferences which other people may draw from his statements. Most deplorable of all is the launching of a whispering campaign to the effect that So-and-so is ‘going off the rails’ or is ‘getting away from the Lord’.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

I’ve just finished the opening essay in Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of
Historical Criticism (SPCK 2013).It’s by
Christopher Hays and is a thoughtful statement on why (evangelical) believers
in Jesus should engage in historical criticism.It gives a bit of an overview on the current state of things and also
why they wrote this book.He says, “This
volume is . . . the book that the authors very much wish they had as a
companion text when they were students sitting in lectures on biblical
criticism” (19).Essentially, Hays
forwards the two-sided argument (1) that evangelicals must engage with historical criticism and acknowledge that
historical critics are right about some things and (2) that this engagement
“does not jeopardize one’s Christian confessions” (18).Hays sets the stakes high by noting that, by
choosing not to engage with historical criticism, professors at evangelical
institutions are essentially “preparing the next generation for apostasy—or at
least preparing them to leave evangelicalism” (8).

Hays is a great writer who aptly uses good
turns of phrase.Plus, he makes some
really important points about the relationship between Christian faith and
historical criticism.For example, he
insists rightly that a particular view of inspiration is not—and never has
been—the litmus test for Christian identity.I can see that this book is not only timely but also critical for the
classrooms of evangelical institutions because there’s no doubting that these
institutions are, in general, in an identity crisis.By and large, this chapter has the feel of
what it is:Hays was groomed at Wheaton
and went on to become an excellent scholar engaging with historical criticism;
he’s now returning to tell the fold that it’s not all that bad out there
and that students don’t have to shun the critics as they have often been
told.This is a good thing.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Almost every Paul course I've taught has included a class devoted to Luther's anti-Judaism. Today I must apologize for a statement about Luther that turns out to be misleading. I have, in these contexts, spoken of the "early Luther" and the "later Luther" concerning his anti-Judaism. The early Luther (or so I thought) seems to have more respect for the kinsmen of Jesus. Although, I suggest in this work that it was Luther's intention to proselytize that fueled his superficial respect.

I’ve recently received from SPCK a copy of
Christopher M. Hays and Christopher B. Ansberry’s Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism. I haven’t gotten to read it yet but will post
some thoughts here as I do, as I hope Anthony will also. I’m excited as it seems to be an important
book on a topic that has received much attention of late due to something of a
renewal of anti-intellectualism in American (evangelical) Christianity. The authors discuss topics such as the fall,
the exodus, prophecy, pseudepigraphy, and the historical Jesus, among
others. At first glance, what seems to
set this book apart from some other studies is that it takes seriously and
accepts many of the conclusions of historical criticism rather than seeking
some apologetic knee-jerk reaction to them.
That’s the initial impression at least, and I hope it holds true. I’m looking forward to the chapter on the
historical Jesus, but also the editors’ contributions: Hays’s “Towards a faithful criticism”
(Chapter One) and both of their “Faithful criticism and a critical faith”
(Chapter Nine). More to come....

Monday, June 17, 2013

Last week, I published an excerpt of my introductory chapter in Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity. Thereafter, I received a request to make the whole chapter available. Rather, than reproducing it here, I have provided a pdf of it on my personal webpage.

Friday, June 14, 2013

On several occasions, we have discussed the
significance of Dale Allison’s tome Constructing
Jesus. We’re happy to announce that
it’s out in paperback, but more importantly that we’re giving a copy away
courtesy of the fine folks at Baker Academic.
You know the rules.

You can
comment here, tweet this (and comment to let us know),

post it on facebook (and
comment to let us know),

and/or sign up to follow the blog (and comment to let us
know).

In case I wasn’t clear, whatever
you do, comment to let us know. We
determine the winner by entering the number of comments into the random number
generator.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Over at Mark Goodacre's blog, he asks for a bit of input about online resources for teaching Mark. After commenting there, I thought I'd expand my suggestions here.

One of the points that I try to make in Jesus among Friends and Enemies (eds. Hurtado and Keith) is that as the plot of Mark unfolds, the Jewish leadership is revealed as adversaries of Jesus. This much is old hat. But if one looks more closely, these supposed "enemies" are narrated as asking questions about Jesus' peculiarities. I.e. it is not necessary to read these early exchanges as charged with animosity. As these "controversies" escalate, it is Jesus who provokes the conflict.

I first started thinking about this text (or at least seriously so) about four years ago. I was living in the Sacramento area at the time when I got a call from Dr. Chris Keith. Chris and I had met once before but I didn't like him very much. You really can't trust an American who doesn't follow baseball. After all, besides baseball, there is really no good reason to be an American.

Chris asked me if I could take his place at the annual Pepperdine Bible Lectures. His paper "Sinners in the Hands of a Deadly God" had been accepted for that conference, but he couldn't attend. Chris had recently been invited to Heidelberg to accept the Templeton Award for Theological Promise for his monograph: The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus. When 10K of award money is on the line with another 10K in travel and honoraria cash, one tends to be motivated to change one's schedule (or so I am told). Now that knew that Chris didn't follow baseball and that he was rich, I really didn't like him at all.

But I am generous beyond measure - really, a pushover. So I agreed to take on his paper topic, complete with his proposed title. It might have helped if he had started writing the thing so I didn't have to start from scratch. Fortuitously, I found my own reading of the text.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

I am pleased to announce that my essay "The Improper Temple Offering of Ananias and Sapphira" is now in print with New Testament Studies. At the risk of too much self-disclosure, I feel as proud of this essay as any other project I've completed.

In this business, nothing is quite as satisfying as taking an age-old puzzle and solving it to one's own satisfaction. I'll try to remember to post a pdf of the essay on my personal webpage ( www.anthonyledonne.com ) later this week. For now, here is the abstract:

In Acts 1–7, the Holy Spirit functions as the restored temple presence of the Lord that will restore the kingdom to Israel via the Ekklesia. The Holy Spirit acts through the Ekklesia as one would expect the Lord's temple presence to act. When Barnabas, Ananias, and Sapphira bring their offerings to the temple, they place them at the feet of the leadership of the new religio-fiscal center of restored Israel. As proof that the Lord's presence has indwelled this eschatological temple community, an improper act can, and does in this case, result in immediate death.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Congratulations to New Testament colleagues who won a 2013 Manfred Lautenschläger Award: David Lincicum; David Moffitt; Michael Peppard; and Ruth Sheridan! See an announcement of the award here. The Manfred Lautenschläger Award is given to ten scholars across the theological and religious studies disciplines and involves a cash prize of $10,000 to each of the winners. It’s given by the Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinäre Theologie at the University of Heidelberg and replaces the previous John Templeton Award for Theological Promise. Congrats to the winners!

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Below is an excerpt from my introductory chapter in Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity. This particular section was written during a time a social conflict in my life. In researching for this, I was hoping to understand better evangelical aversion to and general misunderstanding of historical Jesus research. While many evangelicals whom I've known have voiced an interest in the topic and voice their support of historiographical rigor, there is an equally disturbing hostility to the discipline. Sometimes these two faces of evangelicalism can manifest simultaneously. These are dangerous waters to navigate I have found. What the below excerpt demonstrates is that sometimes scholars and churchmen use the same words and do not realize that they define these words much differently. Shenanigans ensue.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Zeba Crook argues that there is an emerging consensus that the Gospels are reliable historical narratives by those to have applied ‘memory’ theories to historical Jesus research. Crook argues that this emerging consensus betrays a selective reading of research done on ‘memory distortion’ in interdisciplinary study. This essay demonstrates that Crook misunderstands and misrepresents social memory theory both in and outside Jesus studies. A better understanding would have properly represented the spectrum from theoretical ‘presentism’ to ‘continuitism’ in memory applications/adaptations.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

I am appreciating the blog of Jack Daniels over at Studying Jesus and the Gospels of late. That he quotes me appreciably only appreciates my appreciation. Nice turn of phrase from Dr. Whiskey:

There are no primordial events in history, only events experienced and re-membered by various socio-cultural processes – gossip and rumor, story-telling, performance, liturgy, inscripturation, gossip & rumor, story-telling, performance, liturgy, and so on, and all of this, of course, involving interpretation.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Last week I asked a general question about Jesus' seemingly over-the-top stance on divorce. In short, Jesus seems to take a more rigid stance on divorce than any of his Jewish contemporaries (cf. Matthew 5:31-32; 19:1-12; Mark 10:1-12; Luke 16:18; 1 Cor 7:10-11). The discussion that followed was interesting, if at times off topic. Here is, perhaps, a novel take on the topic. I trust my readers to let me know if I'm unwittingly echoing someone else.

If we accept (a) that many of Jesus’ disciples had left their wives behind to follow him and (b) that women were included in Jesus’ following (some known in their own right; not attached to a particular male), could this provide the context for Jesus’ strange teaching about divorce?

Given Jesus’ praise of eunuchs and those who have left their wives and houses behind, it comes as no surprise to hear him discourage remarriage. After all, Jesus seems to have an aberrant view on marriage and family.

Could it be that he was discouraging his male disciples (who had left wives behind) from marrying the female followers with whom they traveled? In other words, perhaps Jesus is saying, “So you’ve left your wives behind to follow me; great! But don’t use that as justification for divorcing your wives to marry one of your new traveling companions!” Please keep in mind that "leaving" one's wife behind and legally divorcing one's wife were two very different things - the latter being devastating for many women.

This possible reading would also help to explain this saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman [or just "wife"] with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:27-28). Dale Allison has suggested that this saying suggests a moderate form of asceticism on Jesus' part. But maybe Jesus is just trying to keep his disciples from exploiting their newly formed "family".

Monday, June 3, 2013

I've been following Ben Witherington's chronicle of his time in Durham (with no little nostalgia). This piece might be his most interesting entry yet. He's (re)discovered J. B. Lightfoot's unpublished commentary notes on the Acts of the Apostles. They seem to have been misfiled in the Monk's Dormitory - a library adjacent to the cathedral cloisters (where I worked on my dissertation quite often).

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Le Donne, Keith, Pitre, Crossley, Jacobi, Rodríguez

James Crossley (PhD, Nottingham) is Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London. In addition to most things historical Jesus, his interests typically concern Jewish law and the Gospels, the social history of biblical scholarship, and the reception of the Bible in contemporary politics and culture. He is co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Christine Jacobi studied protestant theology and art history in Berlin and Heidelberg. She is research associate at the chair of exegesis and theology of the New Testament and apocryphal writings. She completed her dissertation at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. She is the author of Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 213), Berlin: de Gruyter 2015. Christine Jacobi is a member of the „August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum“ and the „Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische Schriften“.

Chris Keith (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Anthony Le Donne (PhD, Durham) is Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary. He is the author/editor of seven books. He is the co-founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts Consultation and the co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Among other works, he is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr-Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005), and Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015). He is particularly interested in the relationship between Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins.

Rafael Rodríguez (PhD, Sheffield) is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University. He has published a number of books and essays on social memory theory, oral tradition, the Jesus tradition, and the historical Jesus, as well as on Paul and Pauline tradition. He also serves as co-chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section of the Society of Biblical Literature.

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Jesus and the Last Supper

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Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text